When The Smile Boutique began working with SEO for Small Business Australia in mid-2020, their goal was two-fold: To build awareness for the Dentagenie and Dentafix brands and products as well as increase online sales.
The strategy devised encompassed a number of elements, including Search Engine Optimisation, Pay Per Click, Content Creation, and Content Syndication.
Creating a strong online presence
These have been utilised to increase online visibility, particularly into new markets, to create awareness of the Dentagenie and Dentafix brands, and to educate customers on how to use the products as part of a regular oral health routine.
“For any other business looking to achieve the same kind of visibility and wanting to build brand credibility and trust, I would advise on similar strategies,” says Bill Vasilliadis, the managing director of SEO for Small Business Australia. “For immediate visibility, the pay per click advertising strategies are recommended – search ads, display, social media marketing, video ads, high-quality content and syndication, and for long term visibility with a solid ROI, I highly recommend SEO.”
Getting noticed in an increasingly competitive market
The challenge for The Smile Boutique is that both the Dentagenie and Dentafix products are part of a growing, and increasingly competitive consumer market. Products tend to be purchased via traditional retail outlets.
“The key to attracting new customers and resellers, retaining existing ones, and building trust were to develop key messages and run them across several platforms,” says Bill.
In the case of The Smile Boutique, these included Google Ads; YouTube advertising; Display Advertising; Social Media Advertising (Facebook); Blog articles on the website, and Content Syndication through Outbrain.
The results speak for themselves
Original engaging, educational blog content, simple key messages, and strong branding run across these platforms have resulted in impressive results including a 100 percent increase in organic traffic, compared to the previous year, and a 100% increase in overall traffic compared to last year. Additionally, visibility across the internet has increased substantially via their Pay Per Click and content syndication campaigns.
Much of the success of these results also lies in the well-considered SEO campaign, which has included a number of elements starting with keyword research to discover phrases people are searching with and relevant to their products.
“We always give our customers some options and allow them to ‘cherry-pick’ services, but the success of this campaign really demonstrates how effective a strategy utilising a number of options across different platforms can be in a very short time-frame,” says Bill.
Getting the basics right
Prior to starting the campaign, a full site audit was conducted to ensure consistency and best practice across a number of areas including:
- Information architecture
- URL structure
- Other technical enhancements such as broken pages and site speed
- On-page optimisation
- Content creation
- Preparation for Core Web Vitals
- Link earning tactics
“The importance of drilling into these technical aspects of a website is critical for the success of SEO, but also critical are things like site content, particularly now with the emphasis that Google is putting on ‘user experience’. It’s also vital that a site functions properly across all mobile platforms too, particularly for retailers,” explains Bill Vasilliadis. “There are some really great templates out there that means people can build their own sites easily and cheaply, and that’s great, but without attention to these details, they will fail time and time again when it comes to SEO.”
Increased conversions
Overall conversions (important business actions on the website) have also increased by more than 100 percent.
The Smile Boutique uses a WooCommerce store via WordPress. Sales have increased over the past several months, and while online commerce was boosted overall by the pandemic, Bill Vasilliadis says it will only remain so if companies get the online sales process right.
“The Smile Boutique product website pages are clean, they have good information and the price is clearly visible. This makes navigation easy, and from there the transaction process is straightforward. This is exactly what consumers want – a simple, trusted process, and their goods delivered on time. Retailers, across any industry, must invest in getting this right if they want to succeed.”
The next phase
As the working partnership between The Smile Boutique and SEO for Small Business Australia heads towards its first anniversary, the core strategy remains the same, with some tweaks to build on the success so far.
“I believe we’ve had such great results because the Smile Boutique team is so open to feedback and new ideas, and they’re not afraid to take risks and invest. They make decisions quickly, which means we can act quickly and change direction if something isn’t working,” explains Bill.
“Online consumers are so discerning, it’s really important to capture their attention and keep it, and being able to do that means having some flexibility in the strategy,” says Bill.
For The Smile Boutique, the success of the partnership lies in being able to work directly with Bill and his team.
“Bill and his team have taken the time to help us to understand things like the way the search engines work, and how customers make decisions, and what we need to do to get in front of our target market and stay there. We’re really happy with the results so far, and we’re excited about what we can achieve,” says Yeeta Mol, CFO at The Smile Boutique.